Stuck in Reverse
by Lily10
Summary: Cloud and Tifa, backwards.


**Title**: Stuck in Reverse  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children (slight references to Case of Tifa)  
><strong>CharactersPairings**: Cloud, Tifa

**Summary**: Cloud and Tifa, backwards. (People can leave so easily)

* * *

><p>Tifa wonders exactly what it is about her, that makes everybody leave her. Why she isn't enough for anyone. She thinks maybe it all goes back to her mother, the first person who left her.<p>

"Tifa?"

Calmly, she puts the phone back in its receiver and briskly turns around; ready for another round of denial, to take charge, to open the bar and make breakfast for the children. Denzel will need his bandages changed. She's in a hurry, all the time, with people. In a hurry to leave a room, leave a conversation, leave them before they leave her.

"Tifa." Marlene is quiet and solemn as she stood in the doorway, "He's gone isn't he?"

No one ever says good-bye. Everyone leaves, but no one says good-bye.

* * *

><p>After Barret sets off and it's just them, together, with Marlene - and then later, Denzel - Cloud learns that Tifa only listens to classical music on the radio and hates the smell of coffee with unbridled passion. He learns that washing the dishes relaxes her and that her secret guilty pleasure is people-watching. He learns that she's a <em>terrible <em>singer, always warbling off-key in the shower and that when asked, she will lie about her age, sick of people's looks of disbelief when she talks about her son and daughter. Not that anyone will believe her claim to be anything over her early twenties.

Tifa learns that Cloud keeps his desk cluttered but knows exactly where everything is and won't tolerate her trying to organize it. That he is absolutely incapable of opening condiment packets without making a mess and that he hates getting his photograph taken, but can be persuaded to if Tifa promises to bake a ham and cheese casserole for supper. She learns that most of his childhood was spent wanting a motorcycle, and that he is a light sleeper, always waking up if she so much as drapes a blanket over him when he falls asleep in his office.

She also learns that he apologizes a lot.

"_I'm sorry I kept quiet about it." _He says, when she finds out about his little delivery jobs on the side.

"_I'm sorry. For making you worry."_He says, when he has forgotten to call.

But most of the time, he tells her sorry with his eyes. Just looks at her, all blue and hopeful-hurt penance. Even when he hasn't done anything wrong, not yet. As if he knows he is going to hurt her sooner or later and wants a head start in forgiveness.

* * *

><p>"That," Tifa nods to the green elongated-shaped vegetable Cloud holds up in one hand, "is a zucchini."<p>

"Zucchini." Cloud dutifully repeats after her, mentally filing away the name for potential future use. He puts down the zucchini on the counter and delicately picks up a round fuzzy pink fruit, before looking back at Tifa questioningly.

"Peach." Tifa instructs, lips twitching as she tries not to grin.

"Peach." He looks so serious and earnest to memorize all the names of the fruits and vegetables they've obtained for ingredients, that Tifa gives in and laughs. Loud, with abandon. She can't remember a time when she's laughed so hard.

Cloud looks at her, embarrassment on his face that quickly fades when he hears her laughing. She has such a ridiculous, braying laugh, that he can't help the barely-suppressed smile that half-erupts.

"You have a nice laugh." he says shyly, because that's how he is – cute and shy and quiet.

* * *

><p>It hurts her eyes to look at the meteor - a big, bright supernova - being devoured by the gathering light, and all she can think about is how green the Lifestream is. Green like the blades of grass that emerge from underneath the snow after a winter's worth of waiting, the green of spring and new life. Of Aerith's eyes.<p>

After the battle, Tifa feels the same sense of shattered balance that she remembers from when Nibelheim was burnt down. Like a pressure falling into place: time slurs, gravity warps, and her head hums as if she's taken too many painkillers against a migraine and now feels painfully small.

She is exhausted- physically, mentally, and emotionally spent. But she's accustomed, in a way, to feeling so much at one time, so it's not completely overwhelming. The hardest part about living isn't life itself, but getting used to a world that ticks along to its own impenetrable rhythm. She thinks she won't be swept away, not with Cloud standing beside her.

"I still have doubts."

Tifa glances over, somewhat worriedly.

"About what?" She asks, as Cloud leans against the airship's railing, his distant gaze looking at something beyond them.

"About... being able to tear away from the past."

Tifa turns to look at him fully. Her voice careful and measured, without heat.

"Do you want to be here?"

Cloud blinks and slowly nods.

"Yeah."

"Start there then. Stop working backwards."

* * *

><p>The doctor spews out words like, <em>"mako poisoning"<em> and _"miracle"_ and _"advanced case" _while Cloud sits in his wheelchair, eyes opening and closing; his head lolling on his neck. The nurse beside him reaches over to wipe the drool from his chin and Tifa feels numb.

Love, she suddenly realizes, is utter shit. It will conspire against you, get you into its tight hold and then let reality fuck you over.

The world is turning to hell all around them, and Tifa is just so tired. So she collapses onto the floor and presses her brow into his lap. "You know I'll always be here, right?" she whispers, because there's a chance he might hear her. Cloud, _her _Cloud, who is half-alive and half-empty with blank eyes that never focus.

Tifa swats tears away from her eyes when Cloud needs to be fed and changed and repositioned to prevent bedsores. She's glad when nobody, not even Barret, suggests she leave him behind. Otherwise, she would've hit them. Gone straight to the jugular. Punch the window and split her hand wide open.

* * *

><p>That day, when Tifa finds Cloud at the train station, he is huddling in a heap on the ground, his hands quivering slightly, a trapped look on his face. She stares at him, at this boy-playing-man, and remembers the feeling of innocence.<p>

So she goes over and clasps Cloud's hands and holds them until they stop shaking, opens his fists so that they are palm to palm, their fingers interlaced. He is warm and soft despite the rain, and he needs her, because she's all he has right now, the only person left who cares. She has never been able to let him go, not even as a little girl, and thinks she isn't going to start now. Or ever, really.

* * *

><p>Tifa has her mom and her dad and her piano. She has friends and pretty dolls and white lace dresses. Her hair is always neatly combed and she makes sure to say her please and thank yous.<p>

Everything is good. She lives in a town where there exists only one pick-up truck and every single person knows who she is and sometimes that makes her crazy but most of the time, she likes it because it makes her feel like she is a part of something.

Tifa is close to her parents, especially her mom. On good days, they will slide down the stairs on sofa cushions or make up funny accents at the dinner table. On bad days, Tifa's mom lays in bed all day, with the blinds closed and forgets Tifa and her father even exist. They try to explain to her that her mother is depressed, and that she's sick in the head, but Tifa still doesn't understand. Not really.

Sometimes Tifa will catch her mother crouching calmly in the dirt, for hours at a time, mesmerized at an ant hill. Once, when Tifa is six years old, her mother almost died. She went for a walk during a snowstorm, the coldest Nibelheim ever had, and they found her frost-bitten and half-dead, curled peacefully underneath a tree.

When she is eight, her mother dies for real. The townspeople whisper, when they think she is out of earshot, that it was probably a suicide. Her father likes to think that perhaps her mother saw a pretty flower or an interesting rock, and bent down to try and retrieve it, lost her footing, and fell off the mountain. Tifa doesn't know which is worst, dying an accidental death, or a purposeful one. She doesn't want to know the truth either way.

In her room, Tifa huddles in a corner, knees to her chest, and Cloud - the short, gangly kid who's always been on the periphery of her life - reaches over, past the other children crowding around her, but draws back quickly when she winces at his touch.

His hands linger nervously at the hem of his shirt instead, toying with the fabric, waiting. She cries into her knees – proper crying with sobbing and whimpering – and Cloud thinks to himself, "_I won't leave her."_


End file.
